Oracle Blog

Monday Oct 14, 2013

With tight budgets organizations
throughout the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) see the appeal of the open
source model. Open source software (OSS) includes operating systems,
applications, and programs in which the source code is published and made
available to the public, enabling anyone to copy, modify and redistribute that
code without paying royalties or fees. Open source “products” typically evolve
through community cooperation among individual programmers as well as very
large companies. An open source license permits anybody in the community to
study, change and distribute the software for free and for any purpose.

At first glance it might seem
that DoD organizations can avoid buying commercial software products simply by
starting with open source software and developing their own applications. As this
white paper shows, total cost of ownership (TCO) for open source software often
exceeds that of commercial software. While minimizing capital expenses by
acquiring “free” open source software is appealing, the up-front cost of any
software endeavor represents only a small fraction of the total outlay over the
lifecycle of ownership and usage. And while cost effectiveness is important, it
must be carefully weighed against mission-effectiveness.

This paper seeks to answer two
questions:

1. What are the tangible and
intangible costs that the government should bear under an open source licensing
model?

2. What are the tradeoffs and
risks associated with open source licensing models in relation to commercially
available software?

Download this whitepaper today
to ensure you are considering the various cost drivers of owning and operating
an application environment.